Tuesday, August 08, 2017

Far be it for me to ramble on about the genius poetry of Guy Clark, coz I already did that last year when the Texas country/folk legend had the sheer gall to die in the Great Artist Cull of 2016.

I don't know why the prick thought he had some sort of right to just fuck off, but the occasion brought forth some very wise words from the smarter of us still left alive. In particular, the observation: "It is like Clark's songs were carved from granite and he delivered them with the dirt still on."
I think I grasp what these lines are getting at, and only partly coz I wrote them. There is no better example of the point than "Randall Knife", released on Clark's 1983 Better Days album. Clark wrote it about his father's death.

Something else strikes me about this -- so much of popular music is aimed at the young. It is of, by and for young people, which is fine in and of itself. But as people age, rather than move on to new music, with new stories, emotions, experiences to express... people look back, preferring nostalgia over their own youth — and noting, invariably, how much better music was "in our day" compared to the muck that today's idiot kids think passes for music.

It is such a cliche and has only ever been true if we compare today's muck to the music of the mid-90s, when I was young.

But life does not stop at 25. It goes on, and all of life's experiences are there for all artistic forms to capture, including song. Life doesn't stop and nor should our music.

This song was written when Clark was 40 and it details an experience many go through at about that age — losing a parent. Clark captures the loss, grief and nostalgia with typical simplicity. The imagery is vivid, but not a word is wasted — a mark of the best country songs.

There is a remarkable stoicism in this song that is never cold or aloof. It is simply a backdrop that never falters. This approach enables the quite serious emotions of the song to come through without ever overwhelming the song, of making it soppy, or even damp, with sentimentality.

I am nearly 40, and both my parents are alive, fit and healthy. But nothing lasts forever. I expect I will grow to love this song even more when experience enable me to understand it better — hopefully not for a long time.

My father had a Randall knifeMy mother gave it to himWhen he went off to WWIITo save us all from ruin

If you've ever held a Randall knifeThen you know my father wellIf a better blade was ever madeIt was probably forged in hell

My father was a good manA lawyer by his tradeAnd only once did I ever seeHim misuse the bladeIt almost cut his thumb offWhen he took it for a toolThe knife was made for darker thingsAnd you could not bend the rules

He let me take it camping onceOn a Boy Scout jamboreeAnd I broke a half an inch offTrying to stick it in a treeI hid it from him for a whileBut the knife and he were oneHe put it in his bottom drawerWithout a hard word won

There it slept and there it stayedFor twenty some odd yearsSort of like ExcaliburExcept waiting for a tear

My father died when I was fortyAnd I couldn't find a way to cryNot because I didn't love himNot because he didn't try

I'd cried for every lesser thingWhiskey, pain and beautyBut he deserved a better tearAnd I was not quite ready

So we took his ashes out to seaAnd poured `em off the sternAnd threw the roses in the wakeOf everything we'd learnedWhen we got back to the houseThey asked me what I wanted

Not the lawbooks not the watchI need the things he's haunted

My hand burned for the Randall knifeThere in the bottom drawerAnd I found a tear for my father's lifeAnd all that it stood for

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About Me

Gentleman ranter. Proof that if you give a man a mask, he may tell you the truth, but give him enough beer and he'll shout it at you. My life-long ambition is to get more Twitter followers than Taylor Swift (last count, only 34,042,711 behind.) Follow me at @carlogrubsands to make an old man's dream come true.